Hu Shi, a native of Longxi Mountain, was born in 1957, a native of the Right Army. He worked at the Linyi Academy of Painting and was employed by the China Academy of Arts. He follows the literati paintings, participates in the "new literati paintings", and now lives in a small house on the outskirts of Beijing.
Like grass worms, birds are also one of the important carriers of Hu Shi's pen and ink expression.
Macro Bird Road, flying in the sky. Microscopic insect trails, down to the grass. The same is the vast world. From the perspective of cosmic concept, the two are not separated from each other, they are the embodiment of the Taoist mind, and they all belong to the mind. Birds and grass worms, these are the two poles of sight, but also the two poles of the spirit, and these two poles belong to the "singularity" of life of the mind.
Since the birds of nature have entered the pen and ink and transformed into the birds in Song paintings, the birds of the shepherds, and the birds of the Bada Shanren, with the aggregation and advancement of culture, the literati of birds have reached the extreme.
The Song people paint birds, courtyard body painting, work and fine, that kind of work is a kind of freehand work, lines and colors are with obvious freehand travel, but it is still not deep enough, not far enough, not broad enough. The muyuan who is far away from the rivers and lakes is a completely opposite scene: the ink is at will, dripping and free, and the painting of birds is like a picture, presenting an ethereal and secluded Zen realm, giving people a sense of desolation of the earth and the sky. The shepherd paints birds, which is the empty phase. Later, the Bada Shanren painting birds is more of a relict independence, a white eye, a roaring pride, a non-violent non-cooperation, a lonely life far away, and a desolate moonlit snow mountain. The lonely and cold feeling of life is presented by birds, giving people a sense of absurdity like a fantasy. The eight great paintings of birds are illusions.
Whether it is images, images, or empty phases and illusions, they are different representations of culture embodied in the artistic level. Hu Shi painted birds, inheriting the traditional Yuxu, on the above cultural background, towards the Confucian enrichment of the upright style, he strives to shape a kind of pen and ink "great", the emphasis is based on the culture of the times and the spirit of the times in the background of the embodiment of the personal style of the bone, that is, he respects the tradition and does not stick to the ink, stands on the Taoist system and out of the machine of the literati painter style, close to the Confucian Ming Zhi quiet and far-reaching ideal of life, that is a kind of "truth".
The world's pleasure in singing and depicting flying birds probably stems from people's imagination and desire to fly. However, the bird in Hu Shi's pen is the bird of return, the bird of landing, the bird of perching, and the bird of non-being. There are winged feathers, but willing not to fly, put the spirit of the bird in the opposite dimension of the sky, choose to stop, choose to stay, choose to stay, this can not but be said to be an attitude. Picking out the cold branches and then perching, not outside the transcendent thing, but inside the walking object, resonating with the pulsation of the large pieces of heaven and earth, this is a state of life that is upright, and it is also a noble and cautious independence. Just as painting grass worms cannot be equal to specific grass worms, Hu Shi is not simply painting the so-called flowers and birds, but literati paintings, in the final analysis, it is culture, relying on pen and ink to say fun, say life, say vitality.
One of the important qualities of literati painting is the discovery of the mind. The nature of the mind comes from the spiritual house, and it is shaped by the ends of the pen, but it depends on the specific presentation of the pen. Hu Shi's calligraphy contains a profound life experience, his pen lifting weights is as light and full as strength, and there is a kind of temperament between the dot paintings that seem to dissipate and be actually strict. Hu Shi paints birds, square pens and round pens are converted to each other, pens are sent, pens are hairy, and the process of using pens is flowing, but all actions are almost instantaneously completed, and this rapid and affirmative speed obviously carries a kind of vertical and horizontal pleasure in it. Such pen and ink seems simple, but in fact, it is extremely difficult, and the power and breath collection must be controlled just to fall to the critical point of emotional expression, and the qi stored in the chest cannot be done. It should be emphasized that Hu Shi paints birds, not only painting shapes but also painting its qi, painting its qi aims to paint its "sex". The Zhongyong says: "The Destiny of Heaven is sex, the willfulness is the Tao, and the monasticism is the teaching." "Hu Shi pursues the willfulness advocated by Confucianism, and flaunts the pen and ink that conforms to nature, so in his pen and ink you can't see decadent and negative things, let alone pessimism, but a magnificent and upright benevolent attitude. The bird in the painting, can fly high, but does not fly, does not chirp, let the fly in the sky, is not it a manifestation of benevolent temperament? These large birds of ink are made of pen and ink sculptures, which have a strong sense of modernity. Although these birds sometimes give people a kind of facial suspicion, it is this "facialization" that emphasizes the superposition and biochemistry of pen and ink modeling, forming a continuous effect of pen and ink, as if the bird in the painting is a person, a wise man, a Confucian, or standing, or lying down, or resting, or thinking, suddenly opening one eye, suddenly closing one eye, suddenly here, suddenly there again. It is a bird that seems to have incarnated into an infinite number of birds; This is an innumerable bird, which seems to be transformed into a bird again, allowing you to break the aesthetic inertia of pen and ink and obtain a wonderful life experience. Hu Shi's paintings tell us that pen and ink is a manifestation of the mind, contemplating a specific personality, in the final analysis, it is culture, and the true sage does not fly alone from the human heart, but chooses humanity; The true wise man never slurred and rapped in groups, but chose to be alone and perfect. Reading Hu Shi to paint birds gives people a different kind of loneliness, that is, a kind of suddenly open loneliness, a kind of full loneliness, a kind of perfect loneliness.
The quality follows the ancient meaning, and the text changes to the present. This is Hu Shi's artistic rope ink, saying that pen and ink must come from tradition and break away from tradition in order to obtain vitality based on the background of the times. The heart, the code of life of pen and ink. Authenticity, the code of life painted by the literati. With these two codes, looking at the sky of culture, the bird traces are invisible and the pen and ink are great, which is the expression of Confucius's "fullness is beauty" and Zhuangzi's "heavenly leisure and ten thousand horses", which are two cultures and two realms that are combined with pen and ink. This is probably the inspiration that Hu Shi painted birds to us. (Text/Da Feng)
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Xinyue Review: Yu Huaifeng